A survey by property portal, Juwai, reports that Australia is the top destination for 27 per cent of mainland Chinese tourists who are planning to buy an overseas property in 2020, clearly suggesting that Chinese buyers are increasingly becoming interested in Australia’s housing market again and that property shopping is part of their travel plans when they go on holiday.
While Sydney and Melbourne remained the most Australian destinations, demand for Gold Coast properties is expected to improve significantly.
“For the first two quarters of this year, in both of the past two quarters, Chinese buyer inquiries have gone up double digits on the Gold Coast in particular, where there is there so much infrastructure and investment going in and prices are relatively inexpensive for what you get,” said Juwai spokesperson Dave Platter.
He said the buyers are typically searching for new developments; and that buying for a student who is going to be studying here is one of the most cited buyer motivations.
The Juwai survey also found a 50 per cent increase in inquiries for retirement properties during the first half of the year.
So, when do the Chinese like to holiday?
The three Chinese long holidays are the Chinese New Year, which usually falls in January or February, the May 1st Worker’s Day and the October 1st National Day. They get between three and seven vacation days around these times and often combine them with paid leave to allow for travel.
The winter school holidays are about 15 days before and after Chinese New Year when people tend to focus more on family time than overseas travel. The summer school holidays for most Chinese students fall early July to late August.
In the first year of the new millennium, 10.5 million overseas trips were made by Chinese residents. In 2018, the figure was 149.7 million. In less than two decades China had become the world’s most powerful outbound market, overtaking even the US.